Renowned financial service Revolut cannot obtain a banking licence in the UK. Among the reasons is the Russian origin of the owners, The Guardian notes.
The service deals with a wide range of services – its app offers, payment cards, insurance, home rentals, cryptocurrency trading and more. The banking licence will help boost the company’s value before going public and scaling it up. The company applied for the licence back in 2021. Six months ago, billionaire Nikolay Storonsky, known as the founder of this fintech startup, renounced his Russian citizenship. His father – also Nikolai Storonsky – has been under British sanctions since October as the CEO of Gazprom Promgaz. This has aroused suspicions among counter-intelligence agencies. But the problems have not only touched on politics.
In December, the Financial Times ran a piece with testimonials from former employees who complained about a “culture of high productivity” – in other words, management pressure that makes for a hostile work environment. It has a high turnover rate. The service responded by promising to hire psychologists. The company was late in filing its financial report in 2021 – it claimed external auditors were to blame. In Lithuania in 2018 and 2022 it was accused of improperly collecting customer information, Revolut has an EU banking licence, this too has an impact. In 2019, the British audited it for money laundering controls.
